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Many studies on health crisis, including the recent outbreak of COVID-19, have explored various socio-cultural aspects related to this pandemic. This article focuses on the perceptions of students from the island of Makean studying in Ternate on the covid-19 pandemic. This COVID-19 risk perception includes both the risk to the students themselves and the risk to their community living in the island of Makean, as well as how to deal with the perceived risk. By using an adjusted combination of quantitative survey and qualitative interview, this study reveals not only figures of the students’ responses in the form of perceptions about the dangers of COVID-19 and the risks they face and what their plans to address these risks through, but also reveals their more qualitative reasons behind the percentage figures. One of the interesting findings was that although many of the respondents considered COVID-19 to be dangerous, and they could be at risk of contracting the outbreak, few of them viewed vaccination as the best way of prevention. This paper implies that the nexus among health crisis, public policy in responding the crisis, and the local perceptions of the crisis and its related policies is a fertile land as well as a challenging arena for anthropological intervention. Keywords: health crisis, Covid-19, pandemic, Students, Makean Island, risk perception.